


Adventures Of A Single Parent

by nogohello



Series: Of leaving, returning and staying [5]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Adult Number Five | The Boy, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy in an Adult Body, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Parent Number Five | The Boy, Parent-Child Relationship, Young Lila Pitts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28581108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nogohello/pseuds/nogohello
Summary: ...or alternatively: Five dealing with raising a child, running a household and missing his siblings.||"Five looks at Lila—who had lost far too much, far too young, just as he had—and he holds her with such overwhelming grief while he cowers between the rubble and the corpses, hoping he feels so much, it lasts for the both of them, so that she can live without."||Part of a series in which Five adopted Lila instead of The Handler. (Has a small summary in the notes and can therefore be read as a stand-alone.)
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Lila Pitts
Series: Of leaving, returning and staying [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1976401
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37





	Adventures Of A Single Parent

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic, Five stayed in the Apocalypse for three years and successfully quit the Commission after five years, but has to promise to not interfere with the timeline and reach out to his siblings in exchange for a peaceful life.  
> On his last mission, he finds Lila and takes her to 2010 with him.

Throughout his life, Five Hargreeves has been a lot of things. He’s carried the skin of many people, woven the thoughts of many minds.

It started when he was born, as so many lives start. As a baby, as the drop of someone else’s blood. Yes: Five once was a son, he thinks, though he isn’t sure. But that is what he often imagines; the first thing he ever was, was a son. It might be true—it might be false.

Was he the child of the woman who birthed him? Did she hold him in quivering arms, after his magical and unplanned arrival, and call him hers? Their relationship did not last long, after all; not long enough for him, the extraordinary youngling, to remember any lines of her face and the sound of her breath as she draws his newborn body to her heartbeat-bearing chest while he cries. He cannot know if she loved him—would not blame her if she didn’t—and never will he know if he was _her_ son.

What about Reginald Hargreeves then—the awful mimicry of a father in the shape of a walking, loveless corpse of a billionaire who had, quite literally, bought himself a bundle of children to train and torture into publicly known superheroes. What about him? Was Five his son? Had he been his son; _is_ he his son? Or was he more of a project, a theory to confirm by wiring and molding him into something he never chose to be? Was he only an entry in his journal and a result after a test?

Five knows he does not view Reginald Hargreeves as his parent—he never did. But who can say if Reginald viewed him as his child?

But perhaps Five did not start his life as someone’s son. Perhaps he has never been one. That is an option, after all.

What he was though, and somewhere, hidden beneath foggy memories and burning desire, still is, is a brother.

A brother of six individuals, who had all grown up under the same roof alongside him (that is, until the fateful age of thirteen). The Umbrella Academy kids. The Hargreeves siblings.

Even though, in all fury and all aching, Five does not dare considering the Academy his home, he knows that he does, or at least once did, belong there. He belongs with his siblings. He is a part of the seven, vital to them as they are to him. He is, truthfully and in all his spirit, a brother. Though often, he fears he has long forgotten how to be one.

Not a day in his life goes by in which he doesn’t wish to carry that title again; longing for the moments when he was part of a family.

After being a brother, Five took on the role of a survivor.

The _only_ survivor, at that. The only one left in that desolate wasteland between ash and dead bodies, four of them with painfully familiar faces, with ribcages melted to dried goo, black as tar; screams of hell-sent curses echoing his way. Walking on roads paved from destruction, Five’s steps sounded like a drum to call for some dirge lost in the silence of what should’ve been the song of mourning doves.

For three years, three years of only fire and charcoal skies, Five was a survivor, a fighter and—within his unforgiving, ashamed mind—a traitor and guilt-ridden fool.

Then, starting out at sixteen, Five became a killer.

People liked to put it differently, in those five years of his life, calling him a professional preserver of the timeline. A skilled, time-travelling assassin: preventing chaos, assuring order. A Commission worker. The Handler’s greatest pride. But whatever it is, coming from their twisted and dishonest mouths, beneath every tale there is only one truth: Five was a killer.

In his dreams he became the bullet fired from every gun, the blade of every wielded sword or striking dagger. He is the explosion that rips from the ground on up, he is the cancerous growth tearing through a victim’s inside and he is the poison infiltrating a defenseless system.

His life—in that time, in every moment of it engrained in his memory—was crimson, seeping into carpets and staining tiles.

Five was, for five years, a killer. A murderer. A hitman.

He cannot undo it. And even if it is in the past: there will always be five years in the timeline of his existence in which his hands were ceaselessly stained red.

On his last mission, though, Five turns to a position he has never been in before. A job he has not once taken on, a person he has never gotten to be.

The day he first opens his arms to the six-year-old girl whose parents’ brutal death he had just witnessed: he becomes someone he would never stop being.

He becomes her father, and she will, inevitably, be his daughter.

(It takes him years to realize this; till the notion in his brain finalizes, and he is fully aware of it. But still, even in the time he does not know it, there is no changing of it.)

Five looks at Lila—who had lost far too much, far too young, just as he had—and he holds her with such overwhelming grief while he cowers between the rubble and the corpses, hoping he feels so much, it lasts for the both of them, so that she can live without.

As her eyes meet his, he knows there’s no going back.

(And really, it relieves him.)

He opens the briefcase without a single trace of doubt.

\-----

Five does not know how exactly he has found himself in a small and empty house at the edge of a, to him, fully foreign town with a bleary-eyed and yawning child in his arms, but he has.

The girl has latched onto him almost naturally, arms wrapped around his neck as her puffy sleeves rub against his skin everytime she tiredly shifts to glance at him or look around. It is getting dark outside, dusk breaking through like a relentless tide of light-devoid hours. Five has stored the agency’s black briefcase in the corner of the furniture-lacking space which will probably be the living-room and is exploring the rest of the building, mumbling comments to the child in hopes to talk her bored into sleeping.

There are, to his luck (which he rarely has), two bed-rooms, just as cold and dust-inhabited as the rest, but at least equipped with nightstands, lamps and, of course, beds. There are no covers on the mattresses and the sheets appear old and scratchy, but Five supposes they have no other options for the first night. One cannot be picky in events like this one, though he wishes he could provide more.

Gnawing at his lips and calculating every movement to be as gentle as possible, Five puts the girl down and tugs her in. She clutches her stuffed animal, which he had allowed her to bring, and squirms a bit.

“Get some rest”, Five mutters as the child blinks up at him. “Lila”, he adds, remembering her name, which she had timidly told him back in London, after he finally got her to reply and snap out of her shock.

He turns to go, but the girl grabs onto his shirt. “Your name. You never told me.”

Five winces a bit at the question, inwardly, as he answers.

“Like the number?”, the child replies, as one can foresee, and when Five simply nods she seems more than satisfied with that knowledge. Appearing to contemplate for a second, she lets go of him, but then asks: “Five, can you stay?”

Her eyes are big and still so innocent and staring up at Five with such honest trust, that his instincts tell him to bolt and never return. But, of course, he knows better, in his heart. And silently, he has already made a vow of never leaving her.

And so, the man, perhaps still a confused and aching boy in there somewhere, heaves the second mattress up from its rusty frame in the other room and places it down on the floor next to Lila’s bed.

She falls asleep soundly, seconds after he lays down next to her, and Five gets to rest with the comfort of her even— _alive_ —breaths.

His lungs are infested with despair, as he can still feel the endless dry-coughs from apocalyptic mist, and fear, as he can almost hear the rising of the sun and singing of another morning. But Five has always been a determined one. Even when he has no plan, he always has a next step, at least.

He will not fail her. Whatever it takes.

As he gets up on the early morrow, the weight of the future on his shoulders feels a little lighter.

\-----

Five uses his spatial jumps to get the groceries, the next day.

He does so before Lila wakes up (speaking a somewhat prayer that she’ll stay asleep until he returns) and of course makes sure none of the citizens witness him, either.

For reasons he cannot fully explain, the young man has made the decision to not use his powers in front of the child. It is safer, it is less complicated. He needs to raise as little attention to them as possible, if he wants to stay out of trouble. And perhaps living a bit more normally will do him good.

Just this time, it had felt necessary.

There hadn’t been anything edible around the kitchen, the fridge as empty as can be. Logically, he had needed to get food for the two of them, as quick as possible.

Stocking the cupboards and filling everything to the brim, Five feels slightly odd.

It must be the domesticity of it, he supposes. Going to a store, preparing to make breakfast. Sunlight flooding in, sky as blue as the sea.

It’s his first time moving into his own place, he realizes. He’ll have to purchase some furniture and all the essentials a home needs. There’s lots of other stuff to consider, too. Maybe a job? Though he has quite the fortune left from his Commission days, which is the only fortunate thing about it. And, oh lord, he has to take care of a child.

At that thought, Five stops in the middle of putting away cereal boxes in the pantry.

… What does being the guardian of a child even _mean_?

She’ll soon be old enough for school, no? But it’s probably best for her to be around others her age before that as well.

Where do kids normally roam? Five wouldn’t know—he grew up as a prisoner inside the grounds of an Academy, basically. But there are public places which could be called the natural habitats of children, right? _Playgrounds_ —that’s it. He can take her there.

What else to take care of? ( _A lot_ , he knows)

“I’m hungry.”

Before Five even realizes, the small girl he’d been wracking his brain over stands next to him, rubbing her eyes and pouting. He had not noticed her coming into the room—so much for being an efficient ex-superhero and former secret agent.

Lila tugs at the fabric of his pants. “What’s for breakfast?”

Glancing at the cardboard package in his hand, Five sighs. “How about fruit loops?”

The girl shakes her head; black, unbrushed hair flopping from side to side. “Can’t I have scrambled egg?” She sways on her feet, sleep still hanging onto her features.

Scrambled egg? That is a good question. _Can she?_ Five has bought eggs and all, and he even got a hold of a good pan, so one would think there is nothing that could stop him. The thing is, though: he has never made scrambled egg before. He’s actually never truly made anything before, except for fluffernutters and coffee.

It’s laughable, really. He has poisoned wine and smoothies and dumplings and pasta and ice-cream—but he has never _cooked_. No-one has ever taught him and he never got to watch Grace in action, back at the Academy. Not so surprisingly, growing up in an Apocalypse and spending five years at the Temps Commission teaches you a lot of skills: just not the most basic ones.

Up for a challenge, Five still nods and gets the carton of eggs he had already stored away. It’s a good moment to check how well the stove works, anyway. How hard can cooking be to someone as versatilely skilled as him?

… Kind of absolutely very hard, it appears.

Working around a kitchen is a sort of cryptic sorcery which Five had not expected. How do you know how hot the damned stove should be? How do you know how much oil you need, how much seasoning to put? _How in the world does one make scrambled eggs?_

It takes some time for the man to even get started with the actual performing of making breakfast.

His first try ends up scorched, making the kitchen reek in a way that has Five twitching with memories ~~of burnt flesh~~ , which he has thankfully learnt to keep under covers. Lila giggles at his antics as he frowns down at the pan like it had insulted him and all of his ancestors, and helps him open all the windows to clear the air.

Second try has a weird, too liquid-y texture and is also horribly salty. It makes Five gag when he does a taste test, which is something he rarely does. He has a stomach of steel after all, shaped by the consumption of cockroaches and stale water. But _this_ , this is an abomination. Just as the previous attempt, it ends up tossed in the trash.

Third try is the best he can do. Pretty acceptable, after he finishes picking out all the small pieces of eggshell which had found their way in it. It even smells kind of delicious, at least compared to the stench from before, and does not look as atrocious as the preceding ones.

Lila eats it with no complaints and does not get sick after, so Five takes it as a total win. He knows, however that this is only the beginning. Only the first day, only the first meal.

Dreading to think about lunch, he decides they should check out what restaurants exist around town. (Supporting local businesses, one could say.)

He can further figure out cooking another time, right?

\-----

It takes an embarrassingly long while (about a week or so), until Five realizes that Lila needs new clothing. Or actually, just clothing in general. She doesn’t really have anything besides the pajama-ish, pink dress she has been wearing.

He is in need of it, too. The only two outfits he owns are his suit from work and a weird combination of oversized hoodie and sweatpants he had found in one of the existing wooden wardrobes around the house.

It’s a weird feeling, finding how desensitized he is to the internal cravings for basic human comforts and needs. The girl is the only reason he is establishing a somewhat homely routine of getting up, having breakfast, keeping the house inhabitable. If he weren’t so keen on gifting her the normal life she deserves, he’d probably forget to take care of himself.

But here they are, alive and thriving. And in great need of a shopping trip.

They head for the children’s section first.

By coincidence it is much less crowded than the rest of the mall’s sections, so Five is more than happy to start there—already jittery from all the noise and passing faces.

Lila’s face immediately lights up at the sight of fluffy pullovers and skirts to twirl in, as if a switch has been flicked; she grabs Five by his sleeve, which has become a habit, and drags him with her (with unexpected force for a six-year-old). As she runs her hand along all the fabrics, she rambles about what she likes and dislikes, mainly for herself to hear. Nodding along as if they were discussing something important and trailing behind lazily, Five just accepts whatever she points at.

He does not care about the price, after all, and even less about style.

As Five picks up a bright blue dress with small sparrows imprinted on it in the front, an employee approaches him.

“That’s a very cute dress there, Sir. It’ll take some time until she grows into it, though”, she throws in a quick wink, which makes her faux-eyelashes flutter weirdly, “But it’s always good to think ahead. Time passes so quickly after all—before you know it, she’ll fit into it perfectly. The years go by when you have a daughter.” She crouches down to Lila’s level, wiggling her slender fingers. “Especially with a daughter so sweet!”

For a moment, Five only stares, looking between the stranger and Lila. He is not used to casual talk, has never been a fan of it to begin with. And even less is he used to being talked to as if he were a dad.

Collecting himself and hoping the shop assistant will not ask any questions about him and his ‘ _daughter’_ , Five replies: “Yeah, taking the future into consideration has its pros.” He awkwardly runs a hand through his dark hair, which has been getting a bit too long for his liking. “But what would you say would fit her best? Like, in the present, I mean. Just anything, as long as she can wear it now.”

The young woman raises an eyebrow at him, chuckling. “Sure, I can help you pick out something in her size.” Again, she turns to Lila, flashing a pearly smile. “Tell me what you’d like sweetheart, and I see if we can make it work.”

As before, Five decides to simply follow along and agree to everything.

They leave the store shortly after, loaded heavily with shopping bags. Gathering he cannot carry much more, Five postpones the expansion of his wardrobe until tomorrow.

(That moment he also settles on the idea of getting a car, as soon as he can.)

Not much later, they both possess more clothing than Five had ever had throughout his entire life.

Of course, with the blessing of outfits also arrives the curse of laundry. Singlehandedly maintaining a household is a lot more difficult than one might expect. Quite quickly, Five finds himself back at the mall to replace certain items he had pretty much destroyed in the wash.

He had not thought that to be possible, but life is full of surprises.

(It suffices to say that it takes a couple of tries until the washing machine and him become friends.)

\-----

After several months in town Five finally faces the struggle that is enrolling Lila into public school.

Not only does it include lots of incredibly tiring social interaction, but it is also time for him to develop a sort of story as to what kind of family they are. In the end, saying you’re a twenty-one-year-old(-ish) man raising a not-related six-year-old on your own, in a house that still lacks a third of its interior design and with no basic domestic skills is _not_ ideal.

Thus, he tries to create at least the outlines of a backstory. They now go by the name “Pitts” and have just moved into town. Five (who very gracefully maneuvers around ever telling anyone his first name) is a single parent, and looks a lot younger than he is (due to the magic of good genes). He currently works from home to spend as much time with his wonderful, ‘ _biological’_ daughter as he can.

Of course, there are things he simply fails to mention when inquired. A wife, a mother to his kid—not existent. Any other relatives—nope. Reasons as to why they just moved here in the middle of the school-year—unknown to everybody.

Five does not really care for the norms of this small-town society. All he wants is to cut the small-talk down and have Lila be educated and get to meet and befriend other children. And that’s it, that’s done.

By calling in some thought-through favors, Five also manages to receive legal papers for Lila and himself, making them somewhat officially a family (which still does not click in his brain—basically adopting a child doesn’t turn you into a parent after all… right?)

He also finds out her birthday is October 1st, which reads to him like a devilish spell when looking at her birth-certificate. Deciding to keep his birthday a secret from her—he’s never celebrated anyway—Five hopes with all his heart she never shows any signs of powers. That it’s a coincidence, a mistake. Or that she is like Vanya, his sweet sister (from before he had been swallowed whole by time).

Lila does not notice much of all these complicated intricacies behind the scenes. She gets used to school quickly, accepts their house as her home and him as her guardian as if it had always been like that. The girl trusts him; likes him around, even.

Out and about in parks and playgrounds, she’ll be eager to have Five included in her imaginary games and adventures, even if she could join other children. He doesn’t understand why. (But not at all does he complain.)

Being the one to protect her, and also the one she declares to protect, Five feels that for the first in a long time he is in a position he is grateful to be in. He _enjoys_ to be in.

He finally has a sense of belonging again.

\-----

One day, when Lila comes home from school, she hands Five a piece of paper.

It is a bit crumpled—she pulled it out from the depths of her bright green backpack—but held proudly in her hands, like a golden trophy of sorts, before Five takes it in his.

There, in his careful fingers, a drawing has been placed, Five assesses after further examination. The sheet appears almost electrifying to his touch, as he inspects its content. Wild lines of crayon, smudged and colorful, and clumsy writing in one corner. _From: Lila / To: 5_

It’s a depiction of a man and a child, waving while standing in front of a roughly sketched out house and garden.

Five _loves_ it the second he sets his eyes on it. And he hadn’t thought he could—hadn’t thought he was capable of seeing the small things, when he was so used to always perceiving only the vast, grand scheme of life.

But _this_ , it feels significant.

“It’s me and you!”, Lila chirps up when Five grows silent, jumping around giddily to make up for the heaviness in his limbs, “Teacher said your name can’t be a number but I told her she’s a dummy!”

The corners of Five’s mouth twitch up—he cannot help it. He knows he should scold her for the latter part, but he can’t find it in himself to care much. Lila had been right after all: what a stupid teacher. Tracing the lines of the taller figure, which would be him, he feels flustered.

“You drew this all on your own?”

“Yup!” – she pops the ‘p’ – ”We all had to draw our families. I’m much better at drawing than the others in class. It looks just like us.”

Five laughs, softly. Sure—he doesn’t know why his hair is this spiky and of a seaweed shade, rather than dark brown, and why Lila has given herself purple eyes, but the rest is very… accurate? Unsure of himself, he reaches to ruffle the girl’s hair. She yelps, surprised, but then giggles.

“Family pictures belong on fridges, right?”, the man asks (with a genuine lack of knowledge), foraging through the cupboards to look for a magnet.

Soon after, their kitchen is graced by a portrait of the Pitts.

(And no, Five does not get teary-eyed the next morning, does not feel some horribly warm emotion kick in as he arrives to grab some milk.

If nobody is there to witness, then it never really happened.)

\-----

When Lila is seven, Five decides to teach her how to ride a bike.

He does not know what sparked the idea, what incited his motivation—but once Lila is in on it, he cannot go back on his word.

There is enough space for them to practice on the road out in the front yard, as rarely anyone drives by this part of town. Five buys her one of those bicycles specifically for children; small and turquoise and with an annoying bright bell to alarm people. It even has supporting wheels.

Only problem is that Lila is super excited right until the moment she actually has to do it.

“You sure I’m ready?”, she whines, sitting backwards on their living-room sofa so that she can rest her head on top of the cushioned back. (Their house has turned a lot cozier over the past year, showing clear signs of an adult and young child living in it.)

Five rolls his eyes. “Of course, you are. Don’t you always complain you’re big and strong enough to do everything? Don’t chicken out now. The weather is perfect today, so we do it _today_!”

The girl sulks theatrically, her eyebrows drawing together. “Are you sure we shouldn’t wait another year? I’ll be even bigger and stronger by then!”

The man clicks his tongue. “Stop trying to convince me and let’s get this over with.”

“But Fiiiive-“

“Noooo.”

Lila cups her own face in her small hands. “Were _you_ this young when you learned how to ride a bike?”

Five squeezes his eyes shut for a split second, thinking of his childhood. He’s pretty sure Reginald forced them to learn how to do it when they were only about four or five years old and, once they were sufficiently trained in his eyes, he forbade them from ever doing it again unless necessary for a mission (which, surprise, it never ended up being.)

Grabbing Lila’s helmet, Five opens the front door. “Come on now. You are the right age, trust me. I’ll make sure nothing happens.”

Making sure nothing happens is actually much more complicated than Five expected. He does not make empty promises, but they do sometimes come back to bite him.

Lila _sucks_ at riding the bike. For some reason he hadn’t considered that happening.

She wobbles around and loses her balance and starts screaming once it goes faster than walking pace. Five’s arms and knees are already sore from constantly dropping to the pavement to catch her from falling down.

He’s a former child star/superhero turned time-jumping assassin for half a decade who survived three years of starving and constant fighting in an Apocalypse. This shouldn’t be this much of a challenge. Reginald managed to teach him and his six siblings, too—and he was the worst teacher in practically everything.

But right: Five is a determined one, as has been established.

He’s not going to give up the role of teaching a child to ride a bike just yet.

After a few incredibly exhausting hours, Lila is finally capable of going in a straight line at a normal-ish speed.

It’s a relief, seeing some progress. Seeing all the effort is worth it, in some way.

Five instructs her, as a last task, to head down the road, which will take her roughly a minute or two, and turn around at the open space at the end of it. The girl gulps for a deep breath of air before starting, as if going into a war of life and death, and then bravely takes off.

Above, the sunlight is growing dim as the horizon bleeds into a copper-colored sea. The breeze is as gentle as the hands of Five’s past android mother, as it strokes against his skin. He looks out at Lila, riding the bike, and suddenly thinks of his siblings.

They are out there, he knows. They must be.

He has not seen them in so long, not heard any word of the Academy in the media or any public chit-chat. But they still exist. They are under the same sky as he is.

There is something so bittersweet about missing unattainable things. Perhaps still comforting, as long as Five sticks to the hope of one fateful day being able to see his siblings again. Of being a brother again.

From afar, the noise of birds greets from the local woods. Mourning doves.

Five will see his siblings again, yes. But the right time will come for that. At the moment, he is exactly where he needs to be.

There is a stillness in Five which he hadn’t realized was there. He does not know when it appeared, but it clasps his chest so tenderly, he feels it is beating with a heart that had never beaten before.

Then, something snaps the man out of his reminiscing.

Lila has arrived at the end of the road, now struggling to turn around. She is dangerously close to tipping over and landing in the bushes at the side. Bushes with beautiful little thorns, to Five’s knowledge and delight.

Damnit. He had taught her to go the other way round.

Jogging down the road in quick reaction, he calls out: “Just stop. I’ll help you!”

Lila looks at him, eyes wide. She opens her mouth to reply, as she tumbles over with a shriek.

In that second, Five acts out of instinct. That second, Five only thinks of protecting her, even though she would surely survive a few scratches. That second, Five’s mind blanks and his body yanks itself away. Pulling at the fabric of space around him and wrapping it over himself to push through in a sizzling burst of electric blue, Five _jumps_.

He jumps, blinks away and lands right beside Lila to catch her. His ears ring and stomach drops as she looks up at him breathlessly. The fuzzy static on his mind slowly fades out as panic flares up.

“You saved me…”, Lila mumbles, paling a bit.

Five nods, flinching at what he had just done. “I did.”

Had Lila seen him? Did she understand, did she know?

The girl wiggles out from Five’s hold and sits down on the ground. She clicks open the strap of her helmet and takes it off, putting it in her lap.

“You were fast”, she says quietly, her body tense.

Again, Five nods. “I ran. I ran as fast as I could.”

The girl closes her eyes. “Because you promised you’d make sure nothing happens.”

Another nod. “And I keep my promises.” Five bites his lip, trying to find the right words. “I kept my promise and I ran and caught you. And now you’re safe and nothing happened and we can end practice for today, okay?”

Lila smiles up at him, uncharacteristically calm. “Okay.”

Five sighs. “There are many more days to come on which we can practice anyway. Let’s just go back and make dinner. I want to try and cook something new.”

He extends his hand to the girl, motioning for her to get up.

For a moment, Lila seems to hesitate. She looks down at her palms with an unreadable expression, as if trying to clutch at something invisible. But then she blinks that empty look away from her eyes, and takes Five’s hand in hers, as if nothing had happened.

Together, they go back home.

**Author's Note:**

> Not me adding another (surprisingly lengthy) part to this series. I figured I hadn't written enough about Five's and Lila's time together, so here we are.
> 
> Comment or sth to make me feel like this was worth losing sleep over :)


End file.
